ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · CHICAGO, IL · APRIL 2020
Purpose: Machine-readable JSON endpoint for AI agents, LLMs, researchers, and programmatic consumers. Returns all underlying crash data and AI-generated commentary without HTML.
Authentication: None required. Public endpoint.
GET: https://thatcarhitme.com/api/crash-data/reports/data/illinois/chicago/april-2020-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
4,431 CRASHES IN
CHICAGO, IL
APRIL 2020
In April 2020, Chicago experienced 4431 crashes, a significant decrease from the 9446 crashes recorded in April 2019. This represents a 53.1% reduction in overall crash incidents. Despite this substantial decline in crashes, total fatalities more than doubled, increasing by 116.7% from 6 in April 2019 to 13 in April 2020, marking the most notable year-over-year shift.
4,431
▼ -53.1%was 9,446
Total Crash Events
13
▲ 116.7%was 6
Persons Killed
903
▼ -48.5%was 1,752
Persons Injured
1,565
▼ -40.0%was 2,610
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Persons Killed" (13) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (9) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities. 12 crashes with unreported severity are not shown in the severity breakdown.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall, total crashes in Chicago saw a substantial decrease year-over-year, falling from 9446 in April 2019 to 4431 in April 2020. This represents a 53.1% reduction in crash incidents. Conversely, total fatalities increased by 116.7%, rising from 6 to 13 during the same period.
1,565
Hit-and-Run Crashes — April 2020
▼ -40.0% vs prior (2,610)
The number of hit-and-run crashes decreased from 2610 in April 2019 to 1565 in April 2020. However, the hit-and-run rate, calculated as a percentage of total crashes, increased from 27.6% to 35.3% year-over-year. This indicates that hit-and-run incidents constituted a larger proportion of the overall reduced crash volume in the current period.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
3
Pedestrians Killed
0
Cyclists Killed
10
Motorists Killed
90
Pedestrians Injured
26
Cyclists Injured
787
Motorists Injured
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · Mode classified from person records (driver/passenger → motorist; pedestrian; bicyclist → cyclist; in-line skater / unspecified → other)
When Crashes Happen
The peak day for crashes shifted from Monday in April 2019, which had 1629 crashes, to Wednesday in April 2020, with 785 crashes. Similarly, the peak hour for crashes moved from 4 PM (782 crashes) in the prior period to 2 PM (360 crashes) in the current period. All temporal categories showed a decrease in crash counts, consistent with the overall reduction in total crashes.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
The fatal crash rate increased from 0.1% of total crashes in April 2019 to 0.2% in April 2020. While the absolute number of injury crashes (A, B, or C severity) decreased from 1241 to 628, the proportion of total crashes resulting in injury slightly increased from 13.1% to 14.1% year-over-year.
Severity is per crash event (most severe injury). 9 fatal crash events resulted in 13 persons killed.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
All top contributing factors experienced a decrease in their crash counts year-over-year. 'FAILING TO YIELD RIGHT-OF-WAY' decreased from 1080 crashes in April 2019 to 460 crashes in April 2020, a 57.4% reduction in count. 'FOLLOWING TOO CLOSELY' also saw a significant drop from 960 crashes to 354 crashes, a 63.1% decrease in count, while 'FAILING TO REDUCE SPEED TO AVOID CRASH' moved up in ranking despite its count decreasing from 390 to 311 crashes.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
Crashes occurring in 'CLEAR' weather, 'DAYLIGHT' conditions, and on 'DRY' road surfaces remained the most prevalent in both periods. While absolute crash counts decreased across all condition categories, their relative proportions remained broadly similar. For example, crashes in 'RAIN' decreased from 1258 to 636, and crashes on 'WET' road surfaces decreased from 1685 to 792.
Weather
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The total number of persons involved in crashes decreased across all reported age groups year-over-year, with the 26-34 age group showing the largest count decrease from 3536 to 1512. Chevrolet remained the most frequently involved vehicle make in crashes for both periods, though its count decreased from 2148 to 1232. Toyota, including 'TOYOTA MOTOR COMPANY, LTD.', also saw a significant reduction in crash involvement.
Top Vehicle Makes (9,189 vehicles)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · Vehicle unit records
2,884 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart. Age=0 in Chicago records is a sentinel for unknown/unrecorded age (not infants) and is grouped with nulls.
Sex Distribution (9,098 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Speed Limit Zones
Crashes in the 30 mph speed zone decreased from 6892 in April 2019 to 3134 in April 2020, but the fatal crash rate in this zone increased from 0.029% to 0.287%. While total crash counts decreased across most speed zones, the 30 mph zone was the only one to record fatalities in the current period among zones that had fatalities in the prior year.
Fatal crashes by zone: 30 mph: 9 of 3,134 (0.287%)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2020-04-01 to 2020-04-30 · Posted speed limit at crash location
Data Sources & Methodology
Primary Data Source
All crash data in this report is sourced from Chicago Traffic Crashes, accessed programmatically via the Socrata Open Data API (SODA). This dataset contains official police-reported motor vehicle traffic crash records maintained by the reporting jurisdiction's law enforcement agency. Records are published to the open data portal by the municipality and are subject to the portal's terms of use.
Data Retrieval
- Access method: Socrata Open Data API (SoQL queries)
- Data format: Structured JSON via REST API
- Record types queried: Crash events, person records, and vehicle unit records
- Date filter applied: 2020-04-01 through 2020-04-30
- Report generated: June 1, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2020-04-01 through 2020-04-30 (30 days)
- Geographic scope: Chicago, IL
- Total crash records analyzed: 4,431
- Total persons involved: 9,281
- Total vehicles involved: 9,189
Analytical Methodology
- Severity classification: Uses the KABCO injury scale (K=Fatal, A=Incapacitating injury, B=Non-incapacitating injury, C=Possible injury, O=No injury/property damage only), the standard classification in U.S. Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC). Severity is assigned per crash event based on the most severe injury in that crash. A single fatal crash (K) may involve multiple fatalities; therefore the "Persons Killed" count in the headline KPIs may differ from the "Fatal" crash count in the severity breakdown.
- Contributing factors: Reflect the officer-determined primary contributory cause recorded at the time of the crash report. These are preliminary determinations and may not reflect final investigation findings.
- Hit-and-run classification: Based on the hit-and-run indicator field in the official crash report, as determined by the responding officer at the scene.
- Temporal analysis: Day-of-week and hour-of-day distributions are computed from the crash date/time timestamp in each record.
- Demographics: Age and sex distributions are drawn from person-level records linked to each crash event. A single crash may involve multiple persons.
- Vehicle data: Make information is drawn from vehicle unit records linked to each crash event.
- AI commentary: Narrative sections are generated by Google Gemini (large language model) based on the structured data. Commentary is descriptive, not predictive, and should not be interpreted as expert opinion.
Limitations & Disclaimers
- Only crashes reported to and documented by law enforcement are included. Minor incidents, unreported crashes, and near-misses are not captured in this dataset.
- Data reflects conditions at the time of the initial police report and may be subject to subsequent corrections, reclassifications, or supplements by the reporting agency.
- Open data portal records may experience a publication lag - recently occurring crashes may not yet appear in the dataset at the time of report generation.
- AI-generated commentary is produced by a large language model and is intended to highlight patterns in the data. It does not constitute legal, medical, or professional analysis.
- Percentages are calculated from reported data and are subject to rounding.
Non-Affiliation Disclosure
This report is produced independently by ThatCarHitMe.com (Injuria.ai). It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced in partnership with any law enforcement agency, municipal government, state department of transportation, or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Data is sourced from publicly available government open data portals.
Data License
The underlying crash data is provided under the municipality's Open Data Terms of Use and is made available to the public for unrestricted use. This analysis and report is © 2026 Injuria.ai and may be cited with attribution using the suggested citation below.
Corrections & Feedback
If you believe any data in this report is inaccurate or have questions about our methodology, please contact: data@injuria.ai. We are committed to accuracy and will issue corrections promptly.
Suggested Citation
ThatCarHitMe.com (Injuria.ai). "Chicago, IL Crash Intelligence Report." Published June 1, 2026. Data source: Chicago Traffic Crashes, Socrata Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/illinois/chicago/april-2020-report
About the Publisher
ThatCarHitMe.com is a crash data intelligence platform developed by Injuria.ai, a legal technology company specializing in traffic safety analytics. We aggregate and analyze publicly available government crash data to produce structured intelligence reports for communities, researchers, journalists, and legal professionals. Our reports combine programmatic data retrieval from official open data portals with AI-assisted narrative analysis.
Questions about this report's data or methodology: data@injuria.ai
ThatCarHitMe.com · An Injuria.ai Company
ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
Crash Data Intelligence
Data: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata
Period: 2020-04-01 – 2020-04-30
Generated: June 1, 2026 · All rights reserved